The concept of the ‘growth mindset’ has been sweeping through mainstream education in the US and the UK since psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University first presented her research on this seventeen years ago. It’s not without criticism, and you can read more about that here, but its basic principles have really taken hold. I’m going to use this blog post to look beyond the ‘growth mindset’ buzzword and explore how these ideas might be applicable in an ELT context. In particular, I want to consider how small changes could make a big impact to young learners.

Growth mindsets vs fixed mindsets

What’s ability and where does it come from? This idea lies at the heart of the mindset question.

Dweck sees this as a spectrum. At one end we have the ‘fixed mindset’ people. These are the folk who believe that, whatever you do, successes are the result of…